No it won’t make my green life blue

Question: what shade of politics describes you if you are happy about the carbon tax, drive an electric car and visit farmers’ markets on Saturday mornings? Answer: a) a pinko b) a green c) a blue?

You’re really cutting edge if you answered c) because blue is the new green and you don’t have to be a pinko to be blue because some of the world’s luxury car companies sport streaks of blue when they’re selling their green, sorry environmental, credentials.

Blue has been seeping into the green movement for a few years now but it arrived on the scene in 2008 when the Pantone colour company declared it colour of the year because it “satisfied the need for reassurance in a complex world while adding a hint of mystery and excitement". It’s a pretty colour too.

But the biggest embrace of the blue future has come from transport groups. Last month, Paris authorities launched Bluecars, an electric car share scheme, and two weeks ago BMW showcased its range of BMW i electric cars with streaks of iridescent blue.

Those who know their way around a colour wheel say blue is better than green at identifying an ecological ethos because it’s more holistic, it covers more of the planet, it suggests a system of sustainability and it’s a cleaner colour. Now, all this might sound as exciting as reading the colour chart in the local hardware store and cynics might suggest it’s just an opportunity for designers to change the corporate stationery. But there are interesting social and political aspects in the desire to oust green in favour of its neighbour on the colour wheel.

First, blue isn’t green. And that’s a major plus because green has become tinged with negative associations during its 40-odd years of fashion. A greenie, for instance, might have been a romantic in the 1970s but the stereotype of a greenie is now a bloke with dreadlocks, who subsists on bean dishes and cash-in-hand shifts. It’s got a whiff about it, you might say.

More recently, a green denotes a political position. A green is someone who rides a rusty bike, buys second-hand clothes and neighbourhood vegies, gasps whenever they walk into your overstocked house, votes for Bob Brown and actually likes Lee Rhiannon.

In short, green has become socially tinged and politically tainted and needs a clean-wash if it’s going to perform on packaging.

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There’s also a lot of sense in changing colours because it reflects the shift in environmental focus from the earth to the sky. In a time of climate change, our concerns have moved on from earthbound activities like logging and dirty factories and litter on roads to more ethereal concerns about what’s happening in that big blue above, what’s affecting the oceans and what’s making rivers run dry.

And, yes, it’s a more ethereal colour. Like emissions and atmospheric gases, blue is suggestive of lightness, transparency and an invisibility that might be inert or might be lethal.

Blue is also an optimistic colour. Adam Werbach, founder of the blue movement, says that if green is all about convincing people that the world is ending, then blue is all about showing how the world will begin again.

To those who only want their toilet bowls coloured blue, all that might sound as if we’re asking a lot of a colour.

However, there are university courses dedicated to studying the effects of colour on people and many designers will charge a hefty price to update a corporate image with a new coat of colours.

So far, the main supporters of the blue movement have been car companies. BMW started with its environment engine, called Blue Tec, and extended the branding with its i range. Volkswagen called its new engine BlueMotion; Mercedes-Benz has launched its S400 as the Blue Hybrid and Hyundai has badged its green car simply, Hyundai Blue.

You can understand why leaders in electric power would rely on electric blue for branding. Blue is not just cool and clean but, more importantly, it’s not green and rev heads from Jeremy Clarkson down hate the idea that their high-performance luxury car might be called a green car. To them, green cars drive like sewing machines.

Elsewhere, the convergence to blue has been a little tardy.

Sure, it’s on tuna cans, it forms the background for smart technology companies and it was chosen to represent the flag of united Europe. But you might not have noticed that blue is the new green.

The problem with colours is that they are culturally tinged.

And, in Australia, blue is the colour people’s toilets turn if they are using the right cleaning product. Blue is also what they feel when it’s their turn to clean the toilet. Blue is their football team or what they call their favourite ranga. But, most of all, blue is our national dreaming.

It’s the colour of our metaphorical postcards – the beach, the sky and the wide open spaces. And it’s going to take more than a few sexy car commercials to convince Australians that it’s the colour of their green, sorry clean, future.